Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson speaks after the signing ceremony for the New International Trade Crossing at Cobo Center in Detroit on Friday, June 15, 2012.

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Today was the occasion for Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson to cheerlead Michigan's most affluent county.

Patterson crowed after the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, with seven Democrats and 14 Republicans, voted unanimously to pass his balanced, three-year budget for fiscal years 2014-2016.

The budget is tentatively balanced through 2017 as well, Patterson said in a statement. And last month, the bond-rating firms of Moody's and Standard & Poor's reaffirmed the county's sterling AAA bond rating, even in the face of Detroit's bankruptcy, "because this county ...